Sailcloth Journeys
by Shadsie
Summary: In mending his sailcloth, Link wonders about the legend connected to it. His curiosity leads him to conduct a ritual to find and connect with the ancient and eternal "Hero's Spirit." What follows for him is a mind-bendng journey through Time.


_**Disclaimer:**__ The Legend of Zelda belongs to Nintendo. No profit is sought from this fan-offering. _

_**Notes:**__ This story is not for Timeline-purists. It is not a claim of canon or theory, just something inspired by a throwaway line early on in Skyward Sword. _

* * *

**SAILCLOTH JOURNEYS**

A stitch in and a stitch out, sword-blistered fingers worked deftly. The needle and thread punched through thick and sturdy cloth, but the stitches were tight, the work delicate. It was a little strange, Link thought, for chapped hands more used to wielding weapons – bows, swords and whips – to achieve such graceful work. The young man had an artist's touch, but his skill with woodcarving was not the same as sewing and his work with that had always been a little rough. Maybe he shouldn't be surprised, he decided on second-thought. This was a useful skill that had seen him through many dangers. He'd been in practice and he had been taking lessons from his best friend. More than best friend.

Zelda walked up beside the large rock where he was sitting. It was best to work with something as large as a sailcloth in the open air, in the bright early afternoon sun where one could get a good look at every stitch. Link had washed his precious lifeline in the pool he was parked beside this morning and the cloth was just dry enough now to mend. He averted his eyes from Zelda, shamefaced.

"I really put it through a lot – it's taken quite a beating," he said slowly. "Burns in Eldin, rips from getting caught in desert winds in Lanayru… I'm very sorry, Zelda."

"Don't be," she said brightly, gently sitting herself down beside him. "It's what it was made for. I made it for the use of a noble knight."

Link smiled lightly. "I wouldn't have survived without it," he responded. "I mean… you didn't choose supply-cloth suited just for use around the Sky, and you spared nothing in stitching it up tight and strong. This thing got me to the Surface under impossible conditions, time and time again. It's like… you knew."

"Of course I did, I was the Goddess," Zelda sighed. "I mean, I didn't actually know who I was then… I am at a loss for all memory of it even now, but somewhere in my spirit, I knew that my champion would need something sturdy, something especially strong…"

"I still managed to get it battered up. It doesn't smell like your perfume anymore."

"You'll probably have to let your Loftwing wear it around a bit," Zelda said, "to get the weatherproofing and magical 'lift' oils from its feathers worked into it again. I'm all out of the concentrate I used."

It was true that by physics alone, it should have been impossible for a sailcloth of an easy-to-carry size to keep a sturdy adult human body adrift, which is where the oils of Loftwing's feathers could impart certain mysterious properties. Thankfully, Loftwing feather-grease was colorless and odorless, though it was fairly waxy. The oils also served to keep rain from soaking the cloth through.

Link continued stitching a tear. "The legend goes that a sailcloth was used by Hylia's first Hero, if I'm remembering the Wing Ceremony and Classics-class right… I hope I didn't get too much sleep in that class…"

"Not the first Hero!" Zelda blurted out.

Link immediately looked up from what he was doing. "Huh?" he asked, "I thought there was just one… He helped our people to the sky."

Zelda shook her head like she was trying to dislodge a memory from her cranium. "There were…more…I'm unsure of how many Heroes served the deities…"

"Zelda, are you alright?"

"There was the one before us… and he had it so hard…" Zelda was wincing back tears. "I'm sure there were others, but I cannot remember them."

"Zel?"

She balled her hands into fists and pressed them down hard against the rock where she sat. She grit her teeth, closed her eyes and whispered something about him lying dead in her arms, but he was not "him" and she was not "her." Link reached out and took her by the shoulders.

"I'm here," he said softly. Zelda responded by hugging him fiercely. She ran her hand up the back of his neck and into his hair. "Yes, yes, you're here," she said, gently prying herself away once she was satisfied. "I'm awake, and you're awake, and we're both here…"

"What was that all about?" Link asked, puzzled about the little episode. It was true that both of them had some post-battle stress from the adventure they'd been on. He didn't know who had it worse. He had nightmares of being tortured all over again by Ghirahim, falling into flowing magma, drowning in sand, and worst of all, losing the fight and watching helpless as Zelda lost her soul. For her part, Zelda had these occasional little blank-outs and stabs of memories that apparently had belonged to her previous incarnation.

"I don't know how you can forgive me for what I put you through, Link," she said softly.

"I chose every minute of it and would do it all again."

"I know you would," Zelda said, talking his right hand in both of hers. "And I don't deserve it… I mean… Hylia… what she did to us…"

"Please stop worrying about the Goddess' will," Link asked. "Please. You knew what you were doing as Hylia. You knew what needed to be done to protect our people."

"No I didn't Link," Zelda insisted with a hard gaze. "Gods cannot understand mortals until they become mortal, themselves. As Hylia, I was so… big… not physically I mean… but…big… big picture. I thought only of the earth, the land, and the people – but as a species, not as individuals. I had no inkling of the pain. I did not care what I'd be putting us through – you through… because I could not. I _knew_ that the plan entailed great suffering, but I could not truly, deeply _care_. I was honestly incapable of it."

"If you had known, could you have done what needed to be done?" Link asked, his voice bright. "Sometimes, it pays to think in the big picture… to just not think of the pain." He spared a glance for his sheathed standard-issue knight's sword and a wooden shield resting against a tree nearby.

"Hey," he said, trying to get her mind off the immediate past, "You just said something about there being possibly more Ancient Heroes than what we learned about in school. That must be a Goddess-memory. Care to tell me more? I'd really like to know the real story of the sailcloth-tradition."

"It's fuzzy," Zelda replied. "Too fuzzy. I just know that my father's books are incomplete. Link, I never regained all of the life of Hylia when I was being awakened. I gained only what I needed for the mission, really, with a few stray pieces. Even what I had… it's all quickly fading. I am settling into a mortal life."

"Are you happy with that?"

"Couldn't be happier, though I fear my past self might have made a wish that tied us to a wheel forever."

"Tell me what you can… I mean, if you want to."

"I think," Zelda began, "I think you actually need to regain memories,"

"Come again?"

"Link… you're obviously my Hero for this age. You defeated Demise and united the earth and the sky, as was the plan and prophecy. The one thing I remember most vividly about my time as Hylia is meeting …um… you… in a different life. Now, you were a mortal, but… I suspect that 'The Hero' is an eternal entity. How many Heroes came before you and who was the keeper of the first sailcloth are yours to find out, I suspect."

Link tied off the last stitch in the last newly-mended rip in his cloth. "How do I do that?" he asked.

"Impa had me bathe in the Sacred Springs and then she brought me to the old Temple of Time. Maybe you need to do the same. There's the spring here in Faron and there's the one in Eldin. You've been through the temples before and it should be easier this time since you've cleared them of corrupting presences."

"Is there anything special I need to do?"

"Strip naked and relax," Zelda said. She noticed color come up in Link's cheeks. "You really cannot get the full effect clothed. And you… you will probably take longer than I did in easing up and feeling the springs' effects."

"How come?"

"Impa emphasized a certain purity with me," she answered, "She had me only eat vegetables and to be careful not to step on any insects on the way. You see… a purity-ritual of that magnitude requires that one be free from killing any living creature – even if one has to, even monsters. When Impa rescued me in Eldin, it was very much because she had to, not just for my sake, but for me to regain my memories properly. If I had fought my captors and happened to slay any, I would have lost a degree of purity and thus lost precious time."

"Oh," Link said sadly. "I can see why that would be. It will be very difficult for me, then. I am far from innocent."

"Yours is still a good soul, Link," Zelda said, "One of the kindest, definitely the bravest. You'll be fine, I just think that it will take you a while to let go and let yourself be 'cleansed.' I'm sure if you do the ritual, you'll be able to connect with the Hero's Spirit."

"I hope so, because I am more intrigued than ever now."

* * *

Link spent three days in preparation, restricting his diet and being careful in his actions. Zelda said that the springs would "cleanse his spirit" no matter what he did, but the relative ease of the experience depended upon how much time had passed between him having taken the life of any creature. Even focusing on peace for several days would not exempt him from a bit of "burning," as Zelda put it, since he had, during his life, killed self-aware beings. Demise and Ghirahim were evil incarnate and the spirit of a weapon, respectively, but they had still been sapient entities – something other than Link's own kind, but still people. Beyond them, Link knew that countless minions of theirs had not only been living creatures, but capable of some degree of thought (bokoblins, though hopelessly stupid by Hylian standards, were complex enough to have a rudimentary culture). The young man did not feel guilt, exactly… just like he bore "necessary stains."

The springs were for saints and sages, he believed, not for those who'd been in dirt and danger, though he'd been to them before in a non-ritual fashion.

When Link arrived at the Sacred Spring of Faron after taking a tour of the deserted Skyview Temple with its attractive glowing fungi, he learned just what Zelda had meant. He stripped down and let the waterfall that sparkled with the most sacred energy wash over him. At first, it was just an ordinary bath, a cool swim. He leaned against the stone at the edge of the spring and began to drift off into a snooze – never a difficult feat for him. As dreams niggled at the edges of his consciousness, they turned dark.

He found himself staring into the faces of countless bokoblins, keese and other living things. Blood splashed across his front. He realized that it was his own, that he'd been skewered through the guts with a sword. His hands turned into the hands of a monster. The faces starting into his turned into his own reflection, many times over. The nightmare was burned off by fire, leaving him to stand alone in an unfamiliar place, surrounded by the corpses of demons and scattered dry bones.

Link realized that he was standing upon a battlefield in the aftermath of war. The land was charred. The place looked like Faron, but all of the trees were as spent matchsticks and the ground was gray with ash. He could see the cinder-cone of the volcano in Eldin in the distance, complete with the reddish glow of lava-flows. A figure approached him out of a haze of windblown smoke. When Link made out the man, it was like looking into mirror that portrayed a slightly older image. The stranger was even dressed like he was, in a green Skyloft Knight uniform, but with the addition of gold-colored shoulder-plates and a red cape that flapped dramatically in the breeze.

The man also had an appalling gash in his left side. It bled generously down his torso and leg, but he did not seem to mind it. Link thought that the poor knight must be missing a working kidney, or at least several major blood vessels in that area. It was the kind of wound that a strong man could survive for a short time, but the battle for life would be ultimately futile. How could he even stand?

The man spoke. "It doesn't hurt anymore," he said. "Don't worry about me."

"Let me help you!" Link exclaimed, running over to him. He ran right through him, as though he were made of vapor.

"We're on a spiritual plane," the wounded person explained as Link looked back at him and got his bearings. "This is like the Silent Realms, except that it's also a creation of our mind."

"Our mind?" Link asked, puzzled.

"Yes. I died from this wound long ago, long before you were born. My spirit and your spirit are the same. I am merely a memory from another life."

"The Ancient Hero…" Link said with a smile.

"Yes, but only the one who came just before you."

"Why would you come to me with a fatal wound?" Link asked.

"To teach you a lesson," the Ancient Hero answered with a slight cruelty to his voice.

Link felt a sudden pain in his wrists. His arms were lifted above his head by no will of his own. His skin felt raw and his limbs grew suddenly heavy. The smoke of the battlefield curled around him until it became a room – a stone-brick prison. The air smelled of rust and blood, mold, stale excrement, sweat and despair. Link began to panic as he found that he was chained to one of the walls. "What's going on here?" he demanded.

The Ancient Hero sidled up to him and cupped his chin in one hand. Link shuddered, being given a slight reminder of Ghirahim's mannerisms. "This was meant to make us strong," his predecessor said. "I suppose that it did in the long run, but for quite a while, it only made me weak. I wasted away in here for years, betrayed by the people I'd tried to protect. I grew sick and I grew angry."

"This is a nightmare," Link whispered.

"It was," the Ancient Hero replied. "The days ran into each other. I lost all sense of time. I slept a lot because my dreams provided the only escape from staring at the floor. I was fed, but not well. I grew emaciated. I did not believe it when I was freed and asked to be the people's Hero again. I gained some strength back… for the great battle, but I think my prolonged weakening in here is why I died in it."

The chains fell from Link's wrists and the room vanished, leaving the two men on the barren battlefield of the Ancient Surface once again.

"What is this supposed to teach me?" Link asked.

"The truth of my story," the Ancient Hero said. "That and a few other things."

"Hmmm… other things…"

"First, be willing to serve the gods when it is right to do so, but don't trust them entirely. Those of us who are called to the greatest service will experience the greatest suffering."

Link smiled. "Someone wise once told me that gods are incapable of understanding mortals unless they become mortal themselves."

"That is true. The other lesson is that, when it comes to your people, the noblest soul is the one willing to save even those who've spat upon him."

Link gave the man a look of surprise. He had many friends and even his one-time rival, Groose, was his buddy now. He honestly couldn't think of anyone among his people who would treat him as the ancient one had been treated.

"It is the calling of the Heroes," the predecessor replied. "Some people won't even know you've saved them, some won't even care. A few might charge you for the privilege. Remember the people who are grateful and smile. As for the ungrateful, know that you did a service to them and keep smiling."

Link gave the Ancient Hero a sad smile and saw that it was returned.

"Don't worry," he said as the dream faded away. "It doesn't hurt anymore."

* * *

The journey to Eldin proved to be stranger. Link found the Sacred Earth Spring and twitched at a painful memory of being chewed out by a young Impa outside of her own time for not arriving sooner. He had failed Zelda then, but redeemed himself later. He stripped down, like before – a relief given the heat in the air. Again, he relaxed and drifted off to sleep in the cool of the water, only this time, he was free of nightmares.

Link found himself walking over the flat, dry earth of Eldin. He took special notice of ores of various kinds glittering in the rocks. He found veins of a black mineral that he took, at first, to be rupoor-ore, but upon second glance he recognized it as something actually valuable – a fuel-source: coal.

The young man noticed himself walking along what looked to be metal tracks – rails like those he'd seen the mine carts in Lanayru run on, paired with ties that looked like stone triangles patterned out. The rails themselves were interesting – they were colored gold and seemed to actually sparkle just a little bit when the breeze kicked up and hit them. The pathway he was following was deeply magical.

As he explored the path, he found that where the rails formed a bridge over Eldin's lava-flows, the molten rock turned into blue water. The barren rocky outcrops, too hot for growing things beyond the bomb-flowers and a few weeds became lush. Link found himself overlooking a vast plain – and railroads like the one he was on crisscrossed all of this country.

He heard a loud, low whistle and quickly got off the tracks as he saw a huge, strange machine approaching him. Sparks flew off its wheels where they made contact with the golden rails. This device was linked to cars like the Lanayru mining carts and a cannon. Link laughed to himself. Groose should be sharing this vision with him – this was just like something he'd try to make!

The amazing iron horse came to a stop. Inside was a young boy in a sharp-looking uniform. He pointed at Link and shouted "All aboard!"

"All aboard?" Link questioned.

"Get on up here," the boy told him, his face suddenly losing all humor.

"Where are we and what is this thing?" Link asked as he boarded the engine.

"Hang on tight," the boy instructed as he started up his vehicle.

"Whoa!" Link said as it started up, rolling down the tracks.

"She's got a bit of a kick when she starts up. I'm going to guess if we're meeting like this, you don't really know what a train is."

"Train?"

"Yeah. I'm Engineer Link Aboda, First Class."

"Link… that's my name."

"Yep."

"Aboda?"

"Well… Queen Zelda started having trouble keeping track of names in census records, so she decided that as many people as possible ought to take on surnames and she required it for all of New Hyrule's engineers. I took the name of my hometown."

Link's mind was spinning. "New Hyrule?"

The Engineer began to explain. "You see all this country here? The roads running all over it are the Spirit Tracks. They're in place to keep an ancient evil at bay – an evil I fought and sealed up after it got loose. This is the kingdom of New Hyrule, which is named after an ancient kingdom called Hyrule that was lost."

"I am… of the Sky," Link began. "And I just rediscovered a world beneath my home that was once called the Land of Hylia, but that ancient kingdom was wiped out eons ago. My people expect me and the reincarnation of the Goddess to create a new kingdom there and people from the Sky are beginning to settle upon the land. They've been calling it Hyrule – all except for one friend of mine. Groose keeps calling it Grooseland."

"Oh, you must be very ancient then," the Engineer said brightly after a good laugh. "Or of the future." He cocked his head coyly. "Perhaps you are of both."

"What do you mean?"

"You'll discover it in time."

Link and the Engineer rode in silence for a while and Link found this mode of travel very pleasant. His dream ended when they approached the sparkling blue blanket of the sea on the country's edge.

* * *

When Link visited the desert, he chose to take a look out over the Sand Sea before heading forth on his mission to the Temple of Time. He still hadn't found all the answers he was seeking. If anything, his head was filled with more questions.

He'd met the Ancient Hero from Skyloft's history books. Granted, he didn't fit what those books told of him exactly. Link knew that he'd helped their people to the sky - at least, according to a legend most people didn't believe in anymore until the Surface had been discovered to be an objective, literal reality rather than merely a myth or a metaphor. Some versions of the legend did have him dying in the great battle against the great vague evil, but there hadn't been any record of him having been betrayed and imprisoned prior to becoming the Goddess' champion.

As for the kid-Hero who smelled of machine-grease and drove a mighty piece of unknown technology that would have made Groose drool, Link didn't know what to make of him.

Link decided not to bother Skipper for a ride around the ancient sea. He was content to look out from the docking area upon the sands, taking sips of fresh water from a canteen. This is why he knew that the vision he'd had next wasn't due to dehydration.

He blinked once and saw the sea. He had not so much as breathed upon a Timeshift Stone and the sea was different from the one that he remembered sailing with a robot-buddy on. It was wider, bluer, and the islands were not the same.

That was when he saw the sailcloth.

A small boat was approaching him on a steady pace, driven by a mighty wind that blew his hair back. The sail on the boat had a different pattern than what was on the cloth that carried him in a safe decent through the air, but it was, unmistakably a sailcloth – too similar to the ones carried by full-fledged Skyloft Knights to be a coincidence.

The boat docked and inside was a boy who resembled very much the young Engineer, but who wore clothing similar to a Skyloft Knight's uniform. It was slightly different and it did look uncomfortably warm, though, especially the sun blazing down. The boy beckoned and Link found himself inside a small red boat that had a prow carved to make the vessel resemble a dragon.

"Where are we?" Link asked the vision.

"The sea," the sailor answered.

"Well, that's pretty obvious," Link said. "Which one? I only know two seas – the Sea of Clouds and the Lanayru Sea, which is all dried up in my time."

"This is the Great Sea," the boy explained.

"Well, it does look like it goes on and on forever."

"As does time in our universe," the Sailor said cryptically. "Since we both carry the Hero's Spirit, I know what you came for. You are the Skychild and you're interested in my sail."

"Yeah. That's what started this – my quest for answers." Link replied, trying to hide his discomfort at being called by the nickname Ghirahim had bestowed upon him. "I wanted to know what's behind the legend of the sailcloth knights in my era use to ease our landings."

"Well, you're lookin' at it," the Sailor said cheekily. "I am Link… of Outset Island."

"Are we always named 'Link?"

"Who knows? It would seem like it, eh? Makes sense, too. We're like a big chain."

"The time for bad puns is over," Link said flatly. "How about you tell me your story?"

"Well… it all started when a monster took my little sister and I aimed to get her back. It ended with me stabbing an evil sorcerer-king in the head then going into an uncharted region of the ocean that might have been another world and saving it from a life-force sucking demon. A lot of stuff happened in between."

Link sat himself down in the back of the boat and let the Sailor take him over the waves and to various small islands. He took quite a long time in telling his story because there was much to tell – at least as much as he'd have to tell if asked about his own adventure. He found it rather interesting that the two of them were both islanders and that they'd both rediscovered legendary worlds that had once been destroyed. Link paid a special fascination to the birds that the Sailor pointed out to him in the sky. There were no Loftwings. Some of the birds were small – like the birds of Faron Woods, only white with pointed wings. Others were, in fact, people – people with wings on their arms.

"Maybe the Goddess and the Old Gods should have given my people wings like that," Link mused. "Though I wouldn't trade my Loftwing for all the worlds."

"Perhaps," the Sailor responded, gently polishing a silver conductor's baton with a soft cloth, "But I find it rather nice to ride the winds on a sail."

"Is this the past or the future?" asked Link. "This place feels like it could be either. Some of the things on the islands here remind me of the lost things I've uncovered from deep in time."

The Sailor cocked an eyebrow. "You should probably see the Hero of Time, then. He'd be able to give you a better answer."

"The Hero of Time?"

"Yeah!" the Sailor said brightly, "He's the Hero that came before me. He knows all about time. In fact, he broke the ages."

"Broke the ages?"

"He's responsible for shifting and rearranging Time itself."

"I've done that. A little," Link replied.

"Go to the Temple of Time," the Sailor said as he, the boat and the sea faded away, leaving Link standing upon the shore of what had once been the ocean bordering Lanayru.

* * *

After the unbidden vision, Link made his way to the Temple of Time. He used his gust bellows to blow keese and chu-chus out of his way. He had not even brought his sword on this journey, due to Zelda's purity-rule. He'd been fully-clothed and geared in all of the dream-worlds, though. He assumed that he was free in them, should the dreams ever provide him with danger.

Along the way he kept thinking about Zelda's words regarding gods and mortals. He definitely liked Zelda as a human, as "his Zelda" much more than as an aloof Goddess. The whole thing had been a very difficult thing to accept. The old gods – the ancient Golden Goddesses - remained to watch over the world (if they even did so anymore), but they were distant. They had left things behind in the world to aid him on his quest, but the Hylians were without a patron-god now, since their patron had become one of them. Link wondered how it must have felt for her… perhaps similar to the feeling he might have if he ever were to become a beast. He thought of the remlits back home and how people made them pets and shared companionship with them, but how no human or remlit would ever be able to fully understand one another. Link guessed that the gods' trying to communicate with humans must be like if Instructor Horwell decided to try to teach the remlits advanced mathematics. Gifts of food and simple scratches behind the ears were the best communication that could be offered between the species.

Link wondered if, sometime in the past, Hylia had thought of him as merely a pet.

After this, he thought about how human beings could scarcely hope to understand one another. He had become the Hero, but in his "paragon of courage and goodness" status, Link knew, with guilt, that he had overlooked many things. How many times had he seen Mallara in increasingly shabby clothes using her mornings to scrub increasingly shabby laundry? All those mended tears… How many times had he passed by Pipit on walks after dinner at the Academy to see him with circles of exhaustion under his eyes? How many times had he heard his friend's voice quaver just a tiny bit when he spoke of doing his fiercely-guarded night job out of "honor" and "duty?" In hindsight, Link knew that he should have noticed – should have guessed that the family was having financial trouble though all involved were too proud to say anything about it.

Link knew, however, with sadness, that he could not have helped. He was barely able to afford the basics, himself – living off of the charity of Zelda's father. Many of the students had parents that lived off-Skyloft out on distant islands. He was the only orphan, a ward of the Academy.

He thought of Rupin, the gear peddler at the Bazaar… how he should have noticed the man's desperate unhappiness behind those fake, contemptuous smiles. He really hadn't noticed until he'd found the man's home at night and got a dose of his nighttime character. Here, too, Link really could not have been a Hero, since the source of the man's depression was something deeply personal – perhaps even an inclination he was born with.

Then… there was Batreaux, the monster-who-became-a-man. After their initial encounter, Link decided that he was not a monster and probably never was one, despite his form, the "demonic" species. Batreaux did not have a monstrous heart – far less than his own, the Hero believed. When he'd stormed into the dilapidated hut to rescue Kukiel, he was ready to slice the beast's head off without a second thought – and there gentle Batreaux was cowering and pleading. He was a "wuss," perhaps, but truly good. Link was glad to have helped him, but did not truly like his transformation. It did not feel… authentic. Batreaux changed appearances solely so that people – superficial, cowardly people – would be able to accept him. His heart had not needed to change at all, but it wasn't his heart that people would first respond to. Link was with Kukiel on the matter. He'd liked "Uncle Bat's" flappy bat-wings. Something inside told Link that he should have worked less to change Batreaux's body and more to try to change the hearts of the people of Skyloft. Sure, the minor monsters stopped appearing after Batreaux became a man and the remlits were tamed, but maybe that would have happened with time, anyway.

There were countless stories of pain on Skyloft, sorrow bubbling just beneath a brightly-painted surface. Link berated himself… even if he couldn't have helped, he should have at least noticed these things… been freer with kind words to his neighbors.

The crest of the temple rose up before him. Link recognized the Triforce at center. He still marveled over having once held the real thing. He'd felt its raw power coursing through him, its wisdom tempering its nature and its courage asking him to act for the greater good. He knew, keenly, how one might develop a spiritual drunkenness from it. He understood how just a part of it in the wrong hands could plunge the world into terror just as the whole artifact in the right hands could make the world bloom with hope. He chose hope – and a specific hope. Seeing Zelda awake and alive again was all he'd wanted. It was an object of the gods made for mortals, a catalyst for innermost wishes. Link had not known exactly what it was, but it felt to him like "will" in physical form. He was slated to fulfill a destiny, which he had, but he wondered if it was Hylia who'd truly lacked a freedom of will in the end.

One thing Link wondered about the crest was why wings were a part of it. The wings were like those of a Loftwing, wide and proud. Link knew the legend of how the Goddess Hylia once had wings and had shed them. The statue that had formerly been a part of Skyloft was a testament to that, showing the Winged Goddess. He found the "goddess plumes" here and there around the land. They were supposedly the fossilized remains of the Goddess' glorious wings – which is why they were highly valued as a trading commodity and a material that could impart "divine protection" on shields and other equipment. They were sparkly.

That crest still gave Link pause, though. The wings were outstretched, while the Goddess statue had folded wings. They carried the Triforce in a way that suggested a bird carrying a passenger on its back rather than the appendages of a winged humanoid. It looked very much like the crest on the special shield that Master Lanayru the Thunder Dragon had offered him for playing his games. The birdlike crest upon that shield was colored a rich red, like his own beloved Loftwing. The "goddess plumes" were white, with some shifting hues of blue and purple at the edges of the crystals. He'd never seen an "inspirational painting" of Hylia with crimson wings. She was always painted as pale and pure as the clouds.

Link entered into the courtyard of the temple. This was the place where he'd seen the first Gate of Time crumble, where he had fought off Ghirahim to secure Impa and Zelda's escape… where he had caught the sacred harp.

He missed that harp. It was back in Zelda's possession now. He had a natural musical sense, but she was better that playing it with her delicate fingers.

Link stiffened when his long ears caught the sound of flute-music. He looked around rapidly. The music was soothing and beautiful. It had a healing quality to it. Still, weaponless, he was on his guard. He'd never heard a monster play music like that (they seemed to prefer blaring horns to announce attack), and he'd never heard the desert wind whistle through the dry weeds like that, either. The sounds were definitely generated by something with an intelligent mind.

There he was, standing in the center of the courtyard – a man dressed in green playing a round blue flute.

Link approached him.

"About time you showed up," the vision said.

"I think I've been looking for you," Link replied. "A part of a ritual I'm doing."

The figure put his flute away in a pocket on the belt across his chest and held out his left hand. "The Hero of Time, at your service."

"So… you're the portion of the Hero's Spirit that came before the kid on the boat, right?"

"Right," the Hero of Time replied. "I think you're starting to get the hang of this spirit-meld thing."

"I don't want to get too cozy with it, to tell you the truth," Link said, rubbing the back of his neck nervously. "I've got a reality I need to live in. Apparently, I've got a kingdom I need to start building, too."

"And a lady to pay attention to," the Hero of Time added.

"She's amazing."

"She always has been. Anyway, I know you are a little confused."

"A little?"

"You were always taught there was just one ancient Hero… and then you sought out the origin of your sailcloth."

"I found that… but I guess I'm going deeper."

That, you are."

"The sailor-kid said something about you 'breaking the ages?"

"Yes," the Hero of Time tried to explain. "As the Hero of Time I slept through time, I rode upon time, I got caught up in loops of time and I generally played with Time."

"I've done a little bit of limited time travel myself."

"I know. The stones."

The Hero of Time took his ocarina out of his pocket and tapped it before returning it to his pocket. "Some remnants remain from your age… and have been created again."

"Why does everyone keep saying that?" Link questioned.

The Hero of Time winked at him. "If you had your life to live all over again, would you live it exactly as you have? If you had countless lifetimes to live all over again, would you live each life exactly as it was?"

"Why?"

"Because you will, my son. You will. Sure, maybe you'll make a few different decisions along the way from the last time you played the game, maybe stumble where you hadn't before or save yourself with caution where last you fell – but the stories will remain the same."

"I do not follow."

"Come here."

The Hero of Time played a different song upon his flute, a song that spoke of agelessness. It sounded like it had been pulled from the depths of eternity. A Gate of Time appeared, but it had a spectral quality. After this, the Hero of Time drew his sword. Link noticed its appalling familiarity. The man from another age was wielding Fi…

The ancient Hero used the Master Sword to draw in the air before the Gate of Time. With a few quick slashes, the shape of the Triforce appeared in transparent gold. It served as an overlay to the Gate.

The Hero of Time continued to trace the outline of the Triforce. "Do you know what the shape of Time is?" he asked Link.

"No, I do not. I know its color… active Time-magic is colored in a blue-shift."

"Follow the tip of the sword."

Link's eyes followed the sword's point as the other Hero traced along the outlines of the Triforce and into the outlines of its center, never taking the blade off the drawing.

"It is in three parts," the Hero of Time explained. "Time in our universe falls into three parts because at the end of my quest, I broke Time."

"You broke Time? How is that even possible?"

"Nice job breaking it, Hero," the Hero of Time laughed. "It was kind of… broken on my behalf, really… an attempt by a certain Goddess to give me a good life, but it's all centered upon me. There are three different tangents dependent upon three different outcomes all centered on me because of my adventures in time-travel."

"I never really could figure that stuff out," Link confessed. "I always figured I must have been created some alternative universe whenever I did stuff in a Timeshift zone. I saved robots that had previously been imperiled and killed things that had previously lived."

"You're starting to understand it," the Hero of Time said. He now took the sword off the Triforce and started tracing a circle, outlining the Gate of Time. "Time is both fragile and strong and it is both beautiful and cruel. The cycles of it usually go in a circle. Winter, Spring, Summer, Fall. The phases of the moon. Birth, death and the stuff in between. When I broke Time, it became Triforce-shaped."

Link nodded, trying to pay attention even though it felt like his brain was melting.

"The piece corresponding to the element of Power was created when I died fighting."

Link's jaw hung.

The Hero of Time traced the Triforce again, from the top of the triangle at the apex, down over one of the lines making up the piece that Link knew corresponded to the element of Wisdom. "But I didn't always die," he said mysteriously. "Here, I was victorious. The Sailor you met with the sailcloth belongs in this portion, as well as our incarnation with the machines and rails."

Link blinked. "There's more?"

The Hero of Time, without taking the tip of the sword off the lines, traced into the remaining portion of the Triforce – the one that represented the Courage element. "Here is where Time was broken to give me back my life." He traced down and around. "I came to a world where I made a loop of three days, over and over again recurring until I set right what once went wrong there. After that, we knew what it was like to become a beast…"

"Where do I fit in to all of this?"

The Hero of Time took the Master Sword off the tracing, held it back, and then stabbed the very center of the Triforce, the "void" area. "Some of us lived in here," he said frankly. "You, the man in chains, the tiny one, the shattered one… perhaps others."

"Are you my past or are you my future?" Link asked.

"Both," the Hero of Time answered.

"Both? How can I be both?"

"Simple." the temporally-addled Hero said. "All the lines run together."

Link looked carefully at the Triforce with the Master Sword glowing in its center, speared through the spectral Gate of Time.

"All are one," he whispered.

"Yes," the Hero of Time said. "Yes. All that has been will be. All that will be has been. When you think about it, not a lot in your era makes sense without the stuff of the other eras tied into it, building it up."

The Hero of Time retrieved his Master Sword.

"I suppose…" Link began, "that means my once-Goddess will become a Goddess again somehow. And evil will always surface."

"The war is never-ending," the Hero of Time said sadly.

"Did you ever meet the spirit of the sword again?" Link asks.

"Only in an impersonal way," the Hero of Time said to Link's disappointment. "But she did her best to protect me and to fight with me only when I was ready."

"Thank you," Link said. "I'm glad I took the ritual."

"Go on home."

* * *

Link found himself deep in the woods of Faron, headed back to the budding Hylian Settlement by the Sealed Temple. He glanced up at the rising moon. He thought he saw a face on it – angry eyes with a menacing grimace of flat teeth. He shook his head and the image was gone. He thought he heard a wolf howling somewhere in the distance. – That was one of the new Surface animals he'd gotten to know. There were so many creatures here that did not exist on any of the islands in the sky.

A scurry in a bush startled him. A rabbit burst out of the dry leaves of the forest floor. Link breathed a sigh of relief. He feared that a Deku Baba plant was sprouting. Happy that he wouldn't have to fight off any carnivorous flowers with a stick (the ritual was over now, he was going to use any weapon he could get to deal with danger the old fashioned way now), he watched the rabbit sniff the air. The thing was unusual. It was wearing a long, floppy hat.

As it bounded off, Link chased it. It disappeared. In the growing mists of twilight, a young man stood, dressed in a green tunic and floppy hat. He held out a pearl, then pocketed it and walked off. Link followed after him, only to trip on a rock and to fall tumbling down a hill.

When he opened his eyes and got his bearings, he found a rough tongue licking his scrapes. He was alarmed to come face-to-face with a large wolf. In the fading light, he could see that its eyes were a deep, startling blue. He sat up and the wolf stat on its haunches, staring at him. It made no move of threat. Link felt a strong, inexplicable connection to it. He remembered the Hero of Time's words about "them" having become a beast.

As the animal turned and walked away into the darkening trees, Link wondered about the rabbit, too.

For part of his walk home, the trees seemed to grow. He felt very small in these woods.

Upon returning to the Sealed Temple, where he kept a makeshift bed while he and Jackamar had been building homes, he collapsed into his blankets and took care not to wake a sleeping Zelda. There, his natural dreams chased away the dreams of wolves, rails, sails and the sad face of a victim of Time.

The next day found him with Zelda, at the sandy shore of the pool where he'd washed and mended his sailcloth. He drew images in the sand with a stick – the outline of the Gate of Time intermingled with the outline of the Triforce.

"You found out what you wanted to know?" she asked.

"Yes," Link replied, "And more. I connected with the Hero's Spirit and learned that it is shared among many."

"Truly?" his Goddess asked. "Do you know how many Heroes? And did you find the origin of the sailcloth?"

"I did," he said in answer to the second question. "Countless…" he answered for the former.

She looked down at the drawing in the sand. "Time… and the Triforce?"

"Yes," Link explained. "This is the shape of time. I am afraid that you did, indeed, tie us to a wheel… and to a triangle, too."

* * *

**END. **

**Shadsie, March 2013.**


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